PlayStation Demand Leads to Country-Wide Violence
by Dan Landis on July 13, 2008 at 7:39 am
Several electronics manufacturing companies have allegedly exploited the people of the African country of Congo in order to get a rare mineral used in electronic manufacturing. Chief among the accused is Sony, whose PlayStation 2 console helped drive the demand for the rare mineral so high that the people started killing each other.
Anyone see that movie Blood Diamond? This is pretty much exactly like that except it’s not diamonds and Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t there. The mineral in question is called coltan, which is refined into tantalum powder. The powder is then used in the manufacturing process for laptops, cell phones, and of course, the PlayStation consoles. The humanitarian website Toward Freedom accuses Sony as being the major force driving the demand for coltan so high, skyrocketing the value from $49 per pound to $275 per pound. David Barouski, a researcher and journalist from Wisconsin, had the following to say:
“SONY’s PlayStation 2 launch (spring of 2000) was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan that began in early 1999. SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don’t care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan.”
Satoshi Fukuoka, a spokesperson for Sony Japan, told Toward Freedom that they still use the coltan-based tantalum in many of their products, but that they go through steps to ensure it is not illegally mined from the Congo. What steps? They simply ask their suppliers and trust their answers.
“The material suppliers source their original material from multiple mines in various countries. It is therefore hard for us to know what the supply chain mix is. I am happy to state to you that to the best of our knowledge, (SONY) is not using the material about which you have expressed concern.”
That’s encouraging…
A UN panel of experts investigated the situation and concluded that it’s pretty much too late at this point, as most of the coltan has already made its way into electronic devices.
Source: Toward Freedom via GamePolitics
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on July 13, 2008 9:17 pm
This is a stupid article, supply and demand, that is what makes the business world go ’round.
If you need a material to produce goods that keep you in business, you put out a request and find the cheapest supplier. it’s not brain surgery. It is a sad fact of life, bananas, rubber, sugar all these things are associated to murder in third world countries. I think it is a problem with the way these countries are run rather than an outside company that has no power or need to change a particular government.
on July 13, 2008 11:16 pm
Thanks for your support.
on July 13, 2008 11:33 pm
I hate africa. I hate that africa is in farcry 2, africa and cod rip offs ruined farcry 2!
on July 14, 2008 12:14 am
If you hate Africa so much, you should feel good that you can blow it up in FarCry 2. Where is your logic?
on July 14, 2008 12:19 am
DOESN’T EVERYTHING RESPAWN AFTER YOU LEAVE THE AREA? AND YOU ONLY REALLY GET TO BLOW UP CRAPPY SHACKS THAT WOULD FALL DOWN ON THERE OWN IF YOU FARTED NEAR THEM BUT HEY THERES NO f**KING MUTANTS IN FARCRY 2!